England 2018 World Cup bid team close to agreeing £2.5m deal with government

England’s 2018 bid team is confident of meeting its target budget of £15
million despite failing to persuade the government to contribute an
anticipated £5m.

Backing the bid: England's bid team look to have settled differences and come to agreement with the governmentPhoto: REUTERS

By Paul Kelso, Chief Sports Reporter

12:16PM GMT 02 Dec 2009

The bid is keen to draw a line under the funding issue by Christmas as it attempts to move on from the internal disputes that have hampered the campaign so far, and is close to sealing a deal with government for £2.5m.

In a marked change of tone from recent weeks bid chief executive Andy Anson insisted yesterday that the campaign was in “good shape financially”.

“We’ve got the money we need to do the best possible bid,” Anson said at the Soccerex conference in Johannesburg.

As the Daily Telegraph revealed in October the government has offered a £2.5m loan to the bid company and negotiations over the deal are understood to be in the final stages.

Bid chief executive Anson met with sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe to discuss the issue recently and officials are now working on the fine-print of the deal.

The government’s initial offer was a loan in exchange for equity in the World Cup organising committee should England win, but 2018 have resisted that and are seeking a more traditional repayment model.

The bid will use the £250,000 put up by local authorities in each of the 10 cities that will be included as World Cup hosts to help fund the campaign.

The Football Association board has agreed to put up £10m for the bid and will consider making up any shortfall if required. The bid is also seeking commercial partners but the feuding of the last two months has been an obstacle.

England’s financial issues are thrown into stark relief by the budgets available to their rivals. Qatar’s bid for the 2033 tournament has $150m at its disposal and Russia’s campaign for 2018, backed by Roman Abramovich, expects to have a $40m fighting fund.

“The official money from the federal budget is in the region of 750 million roubles [about £15.5m],” Alexey Sorokin, chief executive of the Russian bid, said in Cape Town on Tuesday.

“We expect substantial input from corporate money on top of that. We hope to ensure that private money exceeds the public money. We’re expecting the oligarchs to support."